Acidophilus Yeast vs. Acidophilus Bacilli
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: In this primer, Dr. Lee explains the science behind his bowel-normalizing product Acidophilus Yeast (known today as Lactic Acid Yeast). This special “mycelium type yeast” converts any dietary carbohydrate into lactic acid within the colon. This not only acidifies the bowel—thus killing potentially dangerous microorganisms that thrive in a more alkaline environment—but also releases enzymes that aid in digestion and provides bulk to stool, all of which help ensure normal bowel movement. “It has been demonstrated time and time again,” Lee writes, “that the stools of patients who are constipated are, in a very large majority, alakin[e]…The lactic acid acts as a stabilizer of the hydrogen ion concentration in the colon.” Circa 1940.
Applied Protomorphology Brief
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: A synopsis of the Theory of Protomorphology by the man who developed it. In this brief article, Lee touches on the basics of autoimmune theory decades before autoimmune disorders were acknowledged and accepted by the field of medical science.
View PDF: Applied Protomorphology Brief
The Battlefront for Better Nutrition
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: "Yes, there is a battle going on," Dr. Lee writes in this 1950 article from the magazine The Interpreter. But the war Dr. Lee was referring to didn't involve guns or missiles. It was a contest hidden from public view, waged by industrial food manufacturers and processors against small-scale farmers and the country's nutrition pioneers, who saw firsthand the damage that processed foods were inflicting on the national health. Lee decries the substitution of bleached flour and hydrogenated fats for whole wheat and butter and condemns the FDA for allowing food processors and their paid "experts" to dupe the American public into trading real food for counterfeit. Includes the infamous testimony of Dr. Elmer M. Nelson, head of the nutrition division of the FDA, who in 1949 swore in federal court that "it is wholly unscientific to state that a well-fed body is more able to resist disease than a less well-fed body." Reprint 30E, 1950.
View PDF: The Battlefront for Better Nutrition
Butter, Vitamin E, and the X Factor of Weston A. Price
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Dr. Lee praises butter as an unparalleled source of the fat-soluble vitamins A, D and E, as well as a source of "Vitamin F," a complex that includes the essential fatty acids linoleic acid and linolenic acid as well as arachidonic acid. Lee also explains that vitamin E comprises more than just the antioxidant tocopherols and cites evidence that overconsumption of tocopherols can lead to loss of bone calcium. Finally, Dr. Lee discusses Weston A. Price's discovery of a certain "Activator X"—found only in cows fed spring grass—that promotes the calcification and health of bones and teeth in human patients. 1942.
View PDF: Butter, Vitamin E, and the X Factor of Weston A. Price
Caffeine, Coffee and Coca Cola
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Dr. Lee discusses the addictive qualities of caffeine as well as the novel practice of the originators of Coca-Cola to add extra, isolated caffeine to its popular soft drink. "The effects of drinking caffeine on an empty stomach and in a free state are far more dangerous than drinking an equal quantity of caffeine wrapped up with tannic acid in tea and coffee," Lee writes. From Herald of Health, 1957.
View PDF: Caffeine, Coffee and Coca Cola
Calories: Nutritional and Harmful Types
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: In this powerful article, Dr. Lee declares the "first principle" of nutrition: "Once a foodstuff has acquired a reputation for wholesomeness and health building, it [should] be always supplied in its unadulterated state, and unaltered by improper processing, refining, or aging." Lee goes on to document the negative effects of processed foods such as refined sugar, hydrogenated oils, and refined flour, pointing to their association with heart disease and diabetes years before conventional thinking recognized such links. From Natural Food and Farming. Reprint 30H, 1961.
View PDF: Calories: Nutritional and Harmful Types
Can Cancer Be Cured?
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Dr. Lee examines a range of nutrition-based accounts for the cause and possible cure of cancer. In particular he quotes Dr. L. Duncan Bulkley: "The present status of the 'Cancer Problem' is...to decide between two quite opposite positions. First, a hypothetical and problematical view of a local, independent, unexplainable, autonomous decision of certain cells to take on and continue a destructive course, for which immense research has failed entirely to find any reason. Secondly, the simple and rational belief that a perverted nutrition, perhaps of longstanding, influences certain cells to depart from their normal mode of action and take on an abnormal activity, pursuing a malignant and destructive course which is naturally kept up by the continued metabolic disturbance. We accept this latter position in regard to many other diseases, why not in regard to cancer?" Lee also cites the intriguing conclusion of Dr. William J. Mayo, founder of the prestigious Mayo Clinic, who in 1914 expressed the opinion that cancer is caused "by some defect in the food supply of civilized man, including the possibility of too much cooking." 1950.
View PDF: Can Cancer Be Cured?
Cancer: Its Cause, Its Prevention, Its Cure
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: In this report from the late 1940s, Dr. Lee reviews some alternative treatments of cancer that had been shown to be effective. Citing specifically Dr. Davidson in Canada and Dr. Quigley of Omaha, Nebraska, Lee focuses on the likely nutritional causes of the disease. Circa 1949.
The Cause of Erosion
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Dr. Lee, who grew up on his grandfather's farm in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, reflects on his studies of soil health and theorizes as to the chemical and mechanical functions that determine soil's propensity to erode. Contains nuggets of insight with regard to keeping soil fertile and preventing erosion. From The Land. Reprint 29, 1947.
View PDF: The Cause of Erosion
Cereal Grains: Some of Their Special Characteristics
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Dr. Lee discusses commonly used grains and their virtues, properties, and nutritional characteristics. He differentiates the types and proper uses of these grains. Reprint 38B, 1953.
View PDF: Cereal Grains: Some of Their Special Characteristics
The Chemical Background of Malnutrition and Heredity
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: It's been said that Dr. Lee's theories were typically 50 years ahead of his time. In this article from 1956, the great pioneer challenges scientific consensus of the time by stating that the effects of malnutrition in potential parents are inherited by their offspring. "It is a well-established fact that malnutrition can bring about morphological changes that are transmitted to offspring," Lee boldly states. "This seems to explode the generally held opinion that acquired characteristics cannot be transmitted to offspring." Today the science of epigenetics is confirming Dr. Lee's seemingly radical claim, churning out study after study showing that a person's diet can create changes in not only their own genetic expression but in that of their children and even their grandchildren. From Natural Food and Farming, 1956.
View PDF: The Chemical Background of Malnutrition and Heredity
Cholesterol and Its Control
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: In this 1956 article, Dr. Lee emphasizes the importance of cholesterol to health, calling it "a fatty substance that is important in human tissues." Lee condemns both hydrogenated fats and refined vegetable oils for aggravating cholesterol balance and enumerates the nutrients in unrefined vegetable oils that are lost during processing, including the all-important fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K as well as the essential-fatty-acid complex vitamin F. From Natural Food and Farming, 1956.
View PDF: Cholesterol and Its Control
Civilization and Cancer
Compiled by Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Dr. Lee summarizes numerous scientific studies indicating a lack or the extreme rarity of cancer among non-industrialized people still consuming their traditional diets. Subjects include various tribes of North American Indians, the Hunzas of the Karakorum region of Asia, and natives of Brazil and Ecuador. Lee also notes the high rate of thyroid cancer among populations with low iodine intake. From Natural Food and Farming, 1962.
View PDF: Civilization and Cancer
Clinical Nutrition: Food vs. Drugs
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Dr. Lee outlines the efforts of organized medicine in the mid twentieth century to suppress awareness of the effectiveness of clinical nutrition. "This pernicious and corrupt misuse of the facilities of medical education," Lee writes, "has been [totally] effective in creating the idea that nutritional therapy is futile and leans toward quackery." Lee goes on to show how medicine became focused solely on therapies involving pharmaceutical drugs and that it marginalized drugless healing professions through laws preventing the dissemination of information and knowledge. Reprint 25A, 1948.
View PDF: Clinical Nutrition: Food vs. Drugs
Comments on the Relation of Abnormal Heart Sounds to Malnutrition
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Dr. Lee traces the cause of heart irregularities such as extra beats and fibrillations to a loss of conductivity in the heart's tissue, which usually reflects a deficiency of factors in the B vitamin complex. Lee also describes how other conditions, such as hypoadrenia, lead to heart irregularities and discusses the relation of these conditions to deficiencies of various vitamins, such as vitamin F, G, and E2. 1953.
View PDF: Comments on the Relation of Abnormal Heart Sounds to Malnutrition
Cost of Malnutrition
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: In this forward-thinking comment on preventive healthcare, Dr. Lee delineates the ways in which vitamin complexes ensure the health of workers. Vitamin A complex, for instance, helps maintain the integrity of mucous membranes and thus prevent infection and lost man hours. Vitamin B complex keeps the nerves and heart functioning properly; vitamin C complex promotes stamina by optimizing the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood; vitamin D complex prevents cramps, irritability, and bone-calcium loss; and so on. Lee also links low back pain to a shortage of trace minerals. From Let's Live magazine, 1958.
View PDF: Cost of Malnutrition
The Despotic Misuse of Our Federal Pure Food Law
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Publishing this piece was a tremendous act of courage by a man who spoke truth to power his entire lfe. Here Dr. Lee exposes the methods and techniques of government agencies to suppress the natural nutrition movement and subvert nutritional science to medical consensus, even though medical authorities have never trained in or appreciated the field of nutrition. In fact, they have become the apologists for food adulterators and the persecutors of whole food advocates. Lee also deconstructs and debunks FDA attack statements on "food faddists" and organic farming advocates. 1957.
Diet Frights—Sign of the Times
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: "How long will it be before we realize the simple truth that the health of every individual depends upon his nutritional status?" So writes Dr. Lee in making the obvious (yet still ignored) correlation between the emergence of heart disease, cancer, and other "modern" diseases and the devitalization of our food supply through processing and refining. Refined sugar, in particular, deserves much blame for the cellular starvation behind the diseases of modernity. From Let's Live magazine, 1958.
View PDF: Diet Frights—Sign of the Times
The Direct Effect of Malnutrition on Tissue Degeneration
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: In this succinct address to the Seattle Chapter of the American Academy of Applied Nutrition, Dr. Lee touches on some of the major findings of early nutrition science that are still, incredibly, ignored to this day. Topics include the importance of calcium, phosphorus, and raw protein to tooth health; the total destruction of nutrients in bread caused by bleaching; the connection between vitamin E deficiency and heart disease; the dependency of connective-tissue integrity on adequate vitamin C levels; and the various lesions of B vitamin deficiencies. “What lesson can we learn from these few scattered facts…?” Dr. Lee asks in conclusion. “Simply that we must take the trouble in our homes to prepare our foods from the basic materials as far as possible, even to the extent of growing our vegetables and fruits on properly composted soil, if we can. The dividends will be quite possibly 20 years added to our life span, to say nothing of the life added to our years.”
View PDF: The Direct Effect of Malnutrition on Tissue Degeneration
A Discussion of the Forms of Blood Calcium
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: This booklet is an authoritative presentation on the metabolism of calcium in the blood. It outlines the specific influence of various vitamins, such as vitamins F and D, on the movement and activity of calcium. There is more calcium in the body than all the other minerals added together; this is an important overview on the biochemical flow of our most abundant mineral. Includes a large chart of the flow of calcium throughout the body. Reprint 2, 1942.
Do You Want to Lose the Hair on Your Chest? Butter vs. Margarine
By Dr. Royal Lee and unknown author
Summary: Two documents contrast the incredible nutritional value of butter with the equally incredible lack of nutritional value of "oleomargarine" (what we call simply margarine today). In particular, the relationship between vitamin E and pubescent development is discussed, with Dr. Lee reminding readers that "sex development demands vitamin E, and butter is our main source in the American diet." Lee presents photos of boys and girls demonstrating the failure of sexual differentiation to occur as a result of nutrient starvation. He also discusses the vital roles of the vitamin F and D complexes—both found naturally and in their entirety in butter but not in margarine—in assimilating and distributing calcium in the body. From Iowa Business and Industry, 1953, and the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, 1948. Reprint 59.
View PDF: Do You Want to Lose the Hair on Your Chest? Butter vs. Margarine
The Effect of Aluminum Compounds in Foods
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: As aluminum cookware became more widely used in Dr. Lee's day, he and others soon realized the dangers of human exposure to this non-nutritional element. Aluminum poisoning was an unsuspected cause of degenerative conditions until Lee and others exposed the truth. This rare document is a classic, clarion call by the leader and founding member of the natural health movement from the 1920s to the 1960s. Lee Foundation Report No. 5, 1946.
The Embalmer’s Dilemma
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Dr. Lee comments on an article by professor Ray E. Slocum of the Dodge Chemical Company, who reports on the ill effects, as observed through autopsy, of the increased use of pharmaceutical drugs such as steroids, tranquilizers, and estrogenic hormones. From Let's Live magazine, 1962.
View PDF: The Embalmer’s Dilemma
Factors Favorable and Unfavorable to Cancer
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: A brief article on the endocrine system and the relation of its malfunction to cancer. In particular, Dr. Lee discusses the importance of the thyroid gland in protecting against cancer. 1955.
Facts About Sauerkraut and How to Make It
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Once an important "probiotic" condiment, raw sauerkraut—a lacto-fermented food—vanished with the high-heat methods of modern food processing. Unfortunately, cooked cabbage of any kind is of little nutritional value, Dr. Lee says, and it is intolerable to people with senstive gastrointestinal tracts. Lee not only explains the value of this nutritious food but provides a fantastically simple method for preparing it. Reprint 38C, 1955.
The Facts Are Published
By the Therapeutic Foods Company
Summary: In this brilliant missive from Dr. Royal Lee's Therapeutic Foods Company, the "facts" published refer to studies showing that only natural vitamins—vitamins as they are found in food, as complexes of many, cooperating compounds—are capable of curing vitamin-deficiency diseases such as beriberi, scurvy, pellagra, and rickets. On the other hand, isolated or synthetic fractions of the vitamin complexes, which we today define as "vitamins," do not cure deficiency diseases. For instance, few people realize that ascorbic acid (what is known today as "vitamin C" in spite of the fact that it is just one of the many compounds in the natural vitamin C complex) has never been shown to cure scurvy. Nor does synthetic thiamine cure beriberi, or synthetic vitamin D cure rickets. In fact, Dr. Lee points out, studies at the time indicated that isolated vitamin fractions might ultimately make these conditions worse. Scientific study supports these facts, he says, so why not be honest about it? 1941.
View PDF: The Facts Are Published
The Fallacy of High Potency in Vitamin Dosage
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: "The biggest mistake made in the art of therapeutics or nutrition is in assuming that 'if a little is good, more is better,'" writes Dr. Lee in emphasizing the matter of correct dosage in nutritional therapy. Lee goes on to expound the scientific basis of whole food nutrition vs. mega-dosing with "chemical" vitamins, citing several examples in which too high a dosage of an isolated vitamin fraction caused the same symptoms as a deficiency of the vitamin. He also presents several examples illustrating the toxicity of chemical forms of natural vitamins. Contains a large bibliography. Reprint 25B, circa 1950s.
A Few Facts About Vitamins
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: In this brief article, Dr. Lee presents some of his foundational insights about vitamins, including the fact that all vitamins as they are found in food are "complexes," or mixtures of chemically interrelated compounds, and that taking isolated vitamin fractions—unaccompanied by the proper interrelated compounds—is inherently dangerous. He also describes the limited applicability of animal studies with respect to the effective dose of vitamins in humans, citing the great difference in vitamin requirements among different animal species. 1940.
View PDF: A Few Facts About Vitamins
Fluorine and Dental Caries
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Dr. Lee was one of the earliest and most-outspoken opponents of fluoridation of water. In this address to a group in Florida, he delves into the dangers of ingesting fluorine as well as the commercial interests behind the adoption of water fluoridation. Also included is testimony from the U.S. Congress outlining studies on fluoridation that expose the dangerous side effects of this forced public medication. Reprint 53B, 1952.
View PDF: Fluorine and Dental Caries
Foreword to “Chinchillas or You and Your Grandchildren?” by W.R. Cox
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Dr. Lee's brief foreword to W.R. Cox's book about the destruction of chinchillas when exposed to fluoride in their food. In the book, Cox documents in detail his personal account of the ongoing disasters in his chinchillas attributed to high fluoride content of commercial animal feed. This cause was discovered through extensive and documented medical laboratory testing and autopsies. The MD and the chemist conducting the research at the University of Oregon Medical School clearly state in multiple reports that fluoride penetrates the placental barrier in animals, as evidenced by the chinchillas brought in by Cox. From Hello, Test Animals: Chinchillas or You and Your Children. 1953.
View PDF: Foreword to “Chinchillas or You and Your Grandchildren?” by W.R. Cox
Foreword to “Rebuilding Health” by Ebba Waerland
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Ebba Waerland was an internationally famous advocate of natural health from Sweden. The Waerland dietary system—based on whole natural foods—was very popular in Europe. In response to her request, Royal Lee wrote this foreword to the American edition of her book. From Rebuilding Health: The Waerland Method of Natural Therapy. 1961.
Foreword to “The Real American Tragedy” by C. Edward Burtis
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Dr. Lee's foreword to a book about the tragedy of the American food supply and diet. The foreword includes succinct examples illustrating the tragic consequences of an adulterated food supply. From The Real American Tragedy. 1960.
View PDF: Foreword to “The Real American Tragedy” by C. Edward Burtis
Guanidine, Cider Vinegar, and Health
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Dr. Lee lauds Dr. D.C. Jarvis, the famous Vermont physician who penned the book Folk Medicine. In particular, Lee praises Jarvis's recommendation of apple cider vinegar for alleviating a host of disorders, from guanidine toxicity as a result of the overconsumption of meat to a dysbiotic gut or overweight. Lee discussing Jarvis is a must for any fan of nutrition, history, or both. From Let's Live magazine, 1958.
View PDF: Guanidine, Cider Vinegar, and Health
Guideposts to Mental Health
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Dr. Lee addresses some possible nutritional causes of mental distress. People who eat too many acidifying foods, such as whole grains, may become overly acidic, marked by symptoms of irritability, introversion, and the feeling of not getting enough air. People who eat too many alkalizing foods such as green vegetables, on the other hand, may feel aches in their joints or a nervous stomach. Dr. Lee also quotes Dr. Benjamin Sandler's description of people who suffer from drastic swings in blood sugar. "Dizziness, faintness, nervousness, tremors, sweating, pallor, flushing, palpitation, tachycardia (rapid heart), abdominal pain, and psychoneurotic manifestations may occur," Sandler says. To combat such sugar swings, Lee recommends, in words that speak to any nutrition practitioner today, to "avoid refined sugars as found in doughnuts, pies, cakes, ice cream, candy and other forms of sweets." From Let's Live magazine, 1958.
View PDF: Guideposts to Mental Health
An Honest Loaf: Fresh, Stone Ground Bread
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Although the oil in wheat is extremely beneficial, it is also extremely delicate, writes Dr. Lee, making whole wheat flour "as perishable as milk." Truly nutritious bread can only be made with flour that is within hours of being ground. Because of this super quick rancidification of the oil in wheat, virtually all commercial "whole wheat" breads are of dubious nutritional value. The surest way to get the true benefits of wheat, Lee writes, is to buy a home flour mill and bake your bread with freshly ground flour. From Let's Live magazine, 1958.
How Federal Laws and Courts Are Illegally Used by Organized Medicine
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: In this classic lecture to the National Health Federation Convention in Columbus, Ohio, Dr. Lee reveals how organized medicine succeeded in legally hampering drugless therapies through the 1938 Federal Food & Drug Law, which redefined a drug as "anything used to treat, prevent, diagnose, mitigate or cure a disease." Given this new definition, Lee says, "once the drugless practitioner has discovered how to druglessly treat his patient, lo and behold that remedy now automatically becomes a drug and he is stopped from its use." This trick was particularly effective in thwarting the use of whole-food supplements in nutritional therapy, since it made all such supplements potential "drugs" under the law. 1962.
View PDF: How Federal Laws and Courts Are Illegally Used by Organized Medicine
How Organized Medicine Is Fighting Vitamins
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: In this riveting personal account, Dr. Lee describes the legal battle that led him to discover that organized medicine was actively working to discredit and suppress nutritional approaches to health. He also documents evidence of how the medical-pharmaceutical industry had formed what was in essence a cartel aimed at controlling the healing arts and destroying any threat to its control over the nation's healthcare. 1943.
How Our Government Subsidizes Malnutrition and Disease
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: In this booklet, Dr. Lee describes how government policies were designed to protect the adulteration and devitalization of basic foods. He details many examples of such practices, showing how the producers of processed dairy, grain, fruit, and meat induced the medical community to overlook and even endorse their deadly foods. Lee even presents ads in medical journals—paid for by industrial food processors—that brazenly endorse processed foods such as white bread. Lee writes, "Few people in the United States are aware of the 'Iron Curtain' maintained in this country to prevent the food consumer from knowing that he is being sold fraudulent foods, foods that had the better part of their nutritional value removed or destroyed to facilitate the commercial handling of the food, and to enable big food-enterprises to unfairly overpower by price competition the smaller ones." He adds, "The millers and bread makers do not know the trail of wreckage which they have left in the wake of their mineral contempt. They do not know how they have burrowed into the vitality of human life while it is still in the mother's womb. They do not know to what extent they have been responsible for tuberculosis, diphtheria, pneumonia, scrofula, measles, scarlatina, anemia, etc." Special Bulletin 1-49, 1949.
View PDF: How Our Government Subsidizes Malnutrition and Disease
How Synthetic Poisons Are Sold as Imitation Natural Foods
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: The title of this work speaks for itself. Lee includes in this report the story of how synthetic vitamin D caused widespread harm at the time, and he explains how synthetic vitamins are crude and incomplete imitations of natural vitamin complexes formed in the living cells of plants and animals. The science of the optical rotation of polarized light passing through a substance is used to expose and explain some of the essential differences between natural vitamin fractions and synthetic ones. 1948.
View PDF: How Synthetic Poisons Are Sold as Imitation Natural Foods
Ideal Drinking Water
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Many people know white sugar and white flour are refined products, but what about distilled or otherwise "purified" water? Although deionization or reverse osmosis can remove potential pathogens, it also takes away the minerals found in "unrefined" sources of water that are so critical to human health. Possibly the most important of these minerals, Dr. Lee says, is calcium bicarbonate, a form of calcium that has the rare distinction of being easily absorbed by the human body. Other benefits such as natural bacterial antigens, which help build our immune system, and the absence of fluoride make natural, unrefined spring or well water the ideal drink for the human body. From Let's Live magazine, 1958.
View PDF: Ideal Drinking Water
